The Truants

October 21, 2019
Jessica Walker, the 19-year-old narrator of British author Weinberg’s promising but uneven debut, enrolls at a university in East Anglia to study under prize-winning writer Lorna Clay, best known for The Truants, a book that argues debauchery is fundamental to artistic brilliance. Lorna’s current focus is the “rescue” of Agatha Christie and other female authors who have been “dismissed from the canon as irrelevant.” The semester starts strong, with Jess impressing Lorna and finding friends who also subscribe to the charismatic professor’s hedonistic philosophies. Jess, fellow English major Georgie, South African journalist and visiting fellow Alec, and second-year geology student Nick are initially inseparable, but then triangles form and jealousies flare. When betrayal finally tears the group apart, Jess turns to Lorna for advice and support; as it happens, though, Lorna has secrets and an agenda of her own. Weinberg writes incisively and evocatively about infatuation, heartbreak, and grief, but what begins as a tense, taut, character-driven slow burn succumbs to coincidence and melodrama. Weinberg aims high, but misses her mark. Agent: Allison Hunter, Janklow & Nesbit (U.K.).

November 1, 2019

DEBUT This first novel opens as main character Jess chooses her college in East Anglia owing to her obsession with literature professor Lorna Gray, who wrote the blockbuster book The Truants, arguing that artists must break societal rules to foster their creativity. During her first term, Jess enrolls in Lorna's seminar about Agatha Christie and is encouraged to explore the meaning behind Christie's mysterious 11-day disappearance. (The Christie angle adds a unique twist but feels a bit contrived.) Jess is equally captivated by her reckless friend Georgie and irresistibly drawn toward Georgie's dangerous boyfriend Alec, despite her involvement with the nice but unexciting Nick. Will Jess follow Lorna's advice and risk everything to follow her heart? And are any of the people Jess admires really what they seem? VERDICT Though the outlines of the story are familiar, Jess is eminently sympathetic and likable, and Weinberg skillfully depicts the headiness of the transition to college life. The ending feels needlessly protracted, however, as Jess spends several years during and after college (and following what should be the climax of the novel) attempting to solve the mystery of what happened her first year. [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/19.]--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2019
Jess Walker was drawn into Dr. Lorna Clay's orbit the first time she cracked open Clay's The Truants, a compelling literary exploration of John Cheever, Zelda Fitzgerald, and their gin-soaked contemporaries. Clay's words sparked something deep inside Jess, pulling her to a university in dreary East Anglia solely to study under the scholar. Academic hero worship is a particular thing, but Jess never expected to form more than a studious acquaintanceship with Clay. She's quickly singled out, however, as one of the professor's favorites, which opens a door into a privileged and mysterious world Jess never could have imagined. With intrigue sparking throughout, Weinberg's immensely compelling debut novel explores the years-long reverberations of a fractured friend group and echoes Donna Tartt's The Secret History (1992), Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), Richard Russo's Straight Man (1997), and Katie Lowe's The Furies (2019). The mystery at the novel's core befits Agatha Christie, another academic focus of Clay's, and unravels at a nearly perfect pace. Spanning Jess's university years and beyond, this slow burn of a novel explores the headiness of favoritism and the danger in meeting one's heroes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 15, 2019
A group of friends at a British college, all connected to the same charismatic scholar of Agatha Christie's work, are torn apart by secrets and deceptions. When Jess Walker begins to contemplate going to college, there is only one clear choice: She has to attend the university where Dr. Lorna Clay teaches. Lorna is the author of The Truants, a brilliant work arguing that great artists must destroy their personal lives to create, which has captured Jess' imagination ever since she was given the book by her uncle. Once Jess starts college in East Anglia, she strikes up a friendship with Georgie, a wealthy socialite with a proclivity to dipping into her mother's pill drawer; Alec, a 20-something white South African journalist on fellowship at the university; and Nick, a geology student who quickly falls for Jess. A middle child from a farming village, Jess instantly feels her life become more vibrant in the company of her exotic companions. And at the head of it all is the brilliant Lorna, who permeates the boundaries of their lives as students to attend their parties and become their confidante and, eventually, their friend, especially to Jess, who wants to follow in Lorna's footsteps professionally and personally. But as the relationships among the five become more and more tangled, a tragedy suddenly shatters their lives, forcing Jess to confront the illusory nature of really knowing another. Aside from some slight plausibility issues (if only teenagers' lives were changed by works of literary scholarship!), Weinberg has written one of the best thriller debuts in recent years, with all the cleverness of Ruth Ware (and, yes, even Christie herself) and a dash of Donna Tartt's edgy darkness. Though Christie fans may be particularly delighted, this propulsive, pitch-perfect thriller has something for everyone.

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